The Jedi of Oz
by nomuse
Summary: A light-hearted adventure fantasy crossing, well, er...it's pretty obvious from the title.
1. The Storm

THE JEDI OF OZ Scribbler's note:

There's a bit from more than the first movie on one side, and from more than the movie musical on the other. And more than a bit is changed to make a good tale -- don't expect Skywalker to be related to anyone else, for instance (excepting perhaps his aunt and uncle back on Tatooine!)

  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter One : The Storm

  
  
  
  
"Aunt Beru!" The lanky, tow-headed youngster leapt out of the battered landspeeder. "You wouldn't believe all the excitement at the power station today! There's a ship that just came in, and...!"

"Luke!" The woman pursed her lips. "You know I don't like you hanging around those older boys. That's just a whole bunch of trouble-makers that loll about that power station all day."

"I don't think it's the older boys we have to worry about, if you get my drift." Luke's uncle came out of the house, wiping his hands on a bit of rag. He winked at the boy, his face crinkling in a smile. "The boy's fourteen already, and growing so fast you can see it happen just standing there and watching. Seems to me he tries to meander out by that power station whenever the Scott's eldest is there. Cassie, is that the young'uns name?"

The boy blushed, but it didn't keep back his news. "There were two Imperial Storm Troopers there, looking for something. They were going through all the sale records at the general store, too. When I saw they were looking funny at Artoo I kinda slid down over the ridge then I drove as fast as I could all the way back here!"

"Pweet weebop!" agreed the little droid, popping upright in the passenger seat of the landspeeder.

Lars Owen turned serious, quickly. "Trouble with the Imperials we don't need. We got enough to deal with keeping the farm going and a roof over our heads."

"I told you that dealing with Jawas would lead to something like this. That artoo is probably stolen. But no, Lars, you needed to score yourself a bargain!"

"Hush, Beru. We don't know that droid is any cause of trouble."

"And he's a real good worker, Aunt Beru. He's paid for himself a hundred times already," the boy chimed in.

"Well, I don't want you hanging around that power station any more, you hear? I want you to stick close to home for the next few days, Luke."

"All right," the boy said. "It isn't the same since Biggs left, anyhow."

His aunt and uncle shared a glance. Luke's friend had left for the Academy just this last year. Luke, too, had often expressed his dream of becoming a space pilot. It just wasn't all that likely to come true for a farm boy from Tatooine.

"Well, finish those evaporators as quick as you can then come inside," Lars Owen said. He frowned at something only he could see. "I don't like the look of that sky."

  
  
  
  
"Hand me that number ten hydro...oh, thanks, Artoo." Luke took the tool, pushed at a stubborn bolt, backed off and gave it a whack with the back of the spanner. Suddenly the bolt gave, and in a moment green lights began to speckle the diagnostic panel of the balky evaporator.

"We'll have this one mounted and running again before dinner," the boy grinned. "I don't know how I got along without you before, Artoo."

"Wee-oop," the droid said cheerfully.

"Come on." The boy jumped to his feet. "Let's get this mounted out in the south forty, then we can catch the sunset before we clean up."

"Poo-wheep!" the droid agreed enthusiastically.

The twin suns of Tatooine were low on the horizon by the time they finished. Luke mopped his forehead with a sleeve and leaned back against the landspeeder. Artoo made a low trilling like a scrap of tune from an old harmonica.

The hard-packed, arid ground and the sloping mesa on the horizon were no longer a monotonous sameness in dusty beige and sand, but were being painted by the fading sky in swathes of violet and purple. Heat lingered in the desert floor but the air was already starting to chill. The boy turned up the collar on his loose tunic as the evening breeze began to kick up.

"I wonder how Biggs is doing," the boy said. "There's a whole universe out there I've never seen, and I'm beginning to think maybe I never will."

"Pweet?"

"And what's your story, Artoo? You're an astromech droid. You belong on a space ship, not grubbing in a moisture farm. I wonder where those Jawas found you. Maybe some captain down on his luck had to sell you off. Or maybe you were stolen."

"Blooo-whi," the droid said cryptically.

"Hmm." The boy turned back to the sunset. "You know, Artoo," he said softly, "Sometimes I wonder if somewhere out there is a place where the Imperium doesn't go. A place where Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen didn't have to worry so much all the time, and where I could get to be the pilot I've always dreamed of being."

"Tooo?"

"I know," the boy laughed softly. A gust of wind plucked at his tunic, shook the blond hair across his forehead. "I guess it couldn't be the kind of place you could buy a ticket to. Much less get to in a scrap heap like this old landspeeder."

The boy squinted against the growing breeze, staring at the setting suns as if to unlock their secrets. "As long as we're dreaming, Artoo, how about a place where everything is green, not all dry and dusty? And the people are happy all day long. Do you think there could ever be such a place?"

"Too-whit!"

"You're right," the boy said. "It's getting dark. And I wouldn't bet there isn't a storm in the air. Come on, Artoo; let's get home."

  
  
  
  
"Luke?"

"Right here, Uncle Owen!" Luke ran lightly up the stairs to the main room. Then skidded to a stop as he saw the company.

"This is Mir Gul'ach," Lars Owen said, no expression in his voice or eyes. The man was like a dried-up stick inside the dark Imperial uniform. His narrow lips creased in an unctuous smile.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to turn over that new artoo," the farmer said. "Could you get down to the shed and fetch it up here, Luke?"

"But why?" Luke couldn't keep it from bursting out. It hurt, deeper than he might have imagined. Already he and the droid were more than a team. Artoo was like the pet he'd never had. Maybe more.

"Oh, it does no harm to explain," Mir Gul'ach said. His voice held only a false warmth; it was clear he enjoyed his duty far more than he should have. "The An Suc Ran, one of our newest light cruisers, is on a mercy mission to find a missing ship. It seems that one of their droids may have managed to find an escape pod and land in the wastes not far from here, although it was unfortunately picked up not long after."

"Picked up?" Luke echoed, one foot still on the stairs.

"Jawas. Vile little creatures." The Imperial sniffed. "We hope the droid will lead us back to Lord...to the missing ship."

"And what makes you think Artoo is the droid you're looking for?"

"I don't." The Imperial made a wiping-the-hands gesture. "Orders are orders, though. You bought a droid off the sandcrawler in question. It is a pity Jawas don't keep detailed sales records. Not that it would help now, in any case."

"Go, Luke." Uncle Owen gestured. "Let's not trouble this officer any more."

Luke went, reluctantly. He couldn't help noticing how the Imperial didn't watch him go. As if I'm not worthy of his continued attention, the boy thought.

Artoo was plugged into the power center near the center of the vehicle shed. As Luke approached the droid unhooked himself and came up on his treads with an inquiring beep. Luke had to detour around the rounded fender of the landspeeder to reach the droid.

"Artoo," he said. "I'm sorry. You're going to have to go away."

"Too-wheet?"

"It isn't any fault of yours!" Luke said angrily. "It's those blasted Imperials again. Why, if it wasn't that..."

He was so close to the landspeeder he could put a hand on the fender. He did. His voice changed. "Get in, Artoo," the boy said.

I can't just turn over Artoo, the boy thought as he turned the landspeeder in the tight confines of the shed. I don't want to get Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in trouble. If it's Artoo they want, though, they should follow us and leave them alone.

He tapped the control to open the door then hit the accelerator. The landspeeder nosed through the opening door, the edge of the door knocking Artoo back into the seat.

"Careful there, little guy!" Luke laughed, the nervous energy bubbling over. They rocketed around the corner of the house. Luke saw the white blocky shapes of two Imperial Stormtroopers in full battle armor turning as he shot past.

"He's got the droid!" one of them shouted in an amplified voice. "Stop him!"

Luke punched in everything the landspeeder had. It shot forward, drivers howling, dust spraying behind them. "Yeee-ha!" Luke shouted. He couldn't help it.

"We'll head North until we can duck into the Palisades," Luke shouted back to Artoo against the wind roar. "We could hide for years among those rocks." He straightened the landspeeder and their speed picked up rapidly.

"Pweee-aa!" Artoo trilled.

  
  
  
  
It was not quite fifteen minutes when Luke felt something coming up behind. He turned. Sure enough, there were two gray specs in the desert behind them. The specs grew larger as he watched. He could hear the whine of higher-pitched engines as they closed in on him.

In a shocking suddenness they were on either side of him, flying in close formation. Two speeder bikes, high-power engines whining. The white-armored Stormtrooper to his right cocked his thumb down in an unmistakable gesture.

They're not even worried enough to pull their guns out, Luke thought bitterly. He kicked in the air brakes then twisted in a violent turn.

It took only a moment for the speeder-bikes to match him again. The Stormtrooper on the right gestured angrily. 

Maybe it's a bad idea to anger them, Luke thought with a shiver. Suddenly, with two large and fully armed men right there it didn't feel so much like a game. Luke found himself wondering what had happened to the Jawas they'd questioned earlier.

He kicked the landspeeder into another turn, letting it skid like a flat stone before shoving down the accelerator again. This time it took the Stormtroopers longer to catch up with him. But not long enough. The landspeeder was no match for their bikes, and the shelter of the Palisades was still twenty minutes away.

One speeder pulled in front of him. Luke had only a moment to think. He yanked back and the landspeeder reared. Suddenly the flat bottom of the chassis was presented to the air stream and it shot up into the air, losing speed rapidly.

The other speeder-bike swerved by with a shouted curse from the Stormtrooper riding it. Then Luke was in the air and fighting to bring the landspeeder's nose down as it flopped through the air like a falling leaf. The ground-effect drivers had no effect up this high, and the landspeeder made a lousy glider.

The boy clenched his teeth, fighting at the primitive controls with everything he had. The drivers whined desperately as they bit into the ground too fast, at a shallow angle. I've got to hold it just another moment, Luke thought. I've almost got...

The blaster bolt tore the rear of the landspeeder away. The engine blew up suddenly and Artoo hurled out of his seat with a shocked "Aoorrrr!"

Luke slammed into dash and fell back across the seat, stunned, as the landspeeder hit and skidded. It slewed to a broken stop in a great cloud and a spray of broken parts, and Luke fell out onto the dirt. In the sudden hush he could feel the dry dirt against his face, and a trickle of blood, and smell burning plasteel and the ozone of damaged electronics.

A shadow moved across him. One of the Stormtroopers, heavy and menacing in his enclosed helmet and blocky armor. Above him was a larger shadow. Dust kicked into the sky under the vibration of heavy lifters as an Imperial Light Cruiser came slowly down towards the ground to make sure of its catch.

"We have the droid," he heard someone say.

"Take the boy, too," said another voice. Then unconsciousness closed over him.

  
  
  
  
His head hurt. His head hurt a lot. Even breathing made it hurt more, and the pain made him want to throw up.

It was never like that in the stories. The hero would always come to in his cell and immediately jumped to his feet to begin his escape plans.

Luke looked briefly around, constrained a bit by the way he was holding his head in both hands. They had wasted a lot of perfectly good metal in making the cell walls. A maddened Wookie wouldn't be able to bust out. A maddened Wookie in an exoskeleton wouldn't be able to bust out.

No convenient over-sized ventilator openings offered themselves, either, much less sleepy guards with dangling code-keys. Just solid metal walls and a door with all the electronics on the wrong side.

If there was access to the electronics, and if Artoo was here, he might see about picking it. If the Imperials didn't detect and stop him, of course.

Artoo. Where had they taken Artoo? What were they doing to him?

And suddenly Luke understood one truth of the stories. His friend was in danger. And beside that the pain in his head was unimportant.

Luke had felt the great engines of the light cruiser operating, and he guessed they were out in the far reaches of the Tatooine system. Looking for the missing Imperial ship, no doubt. He'd heard that other ships had vanished in the Tatooine system over the years. Most recently, a yacht from Alderaan rumored to be carrying one of their royal family.

"So what's this Imperial ship they are so hot to find now? Must be somebody pretty important on that ship." Mir Gul'ach had been about to say the name of some lord. And his expression had been interesting; as if he was as much in fear of this person as he was interested in doing his duty by finding them.

"Not that that's so unusual in the Imperium," Luke said bitterly. "It didn't used to be like this, back in the old days of the Republic. But the Imperials like spreading fear about. They make us fear them, and they fear each other even more."

A faltering note in the great throb of the engines. "What was that?" the boy wondered. A long moment, then the song of the engines took on a new urgency. Luke could actually feel the change in vector as they attempted a radical change in course.

The pull strengthened, and Luke found himself sliding along the smooth metal bunk. "Ow! Man!" he cried as he fetched up against the wall hard enough to jar his aching head into new agonies.

The engines had taken on a pronounced laboring tone. It was if they were fighting to escape the pull of something, like some great tractor beam. But what could toss around a light cruiser like this? Luke wondered.

The engines faltered again. Then stopped dead. Luke glanced around for one shocked moment before the engines came back up, their sound now strained and sour.

Sparks ran down one wall. The lighting tubes exploded, showering the protective enclosure with particles and plunging the tiny cell into darkness. The ship shuddered with a brutal shock, then another.

The cell door slid open a crack. "The electronics must have shorted out!" Luke jumped up and ran. The door slid closed with vicious force. He eyed it warily. It opened again. He stuck an arm through. Then he yanked his arm back; just in time, as the door snapped closed hard enough to set the walls to vibrating.

The door whined open again, barely a third of the way.

And Luke leapt! Before he had even thought it through he hurled his body through the narrow gap. The door snapped shut again just behind him; this time, apparently, for good.

There was no-one in the main bay of the detention center. In fact, the free-standing guard's booth and the multiple barred doors were gone, along with a big chunk of the bulkhead. Most of the lights were out and electronics smoldered in a smoky mess.

Luke ran, jumping over a jagged pile of debris. He slid between the wreckage of the last set of bars and ducked under a fallen raceway. Sirens were going in this part of the ship, and he could hear boots clattering on steel ahead.

"Hey! Hey, you!" He heard behind him. He kept running.

The ship shuddered again. It threw Luke off his feet and he slid across into the other wall of the corridor. Then a blaster bolt sprayed red metal not a meter from where he was sitting. One of the Imperials had been less shaken than the boy by that last surge. Or was a really lucky shot.

Luke scrambled madly on elbows and knees even as another blaster shot ripped into the floor behind him. He shoved his palms against the deck plates, kept driving with his legs, managed somehow to end up on his feet and still running in the right direction...and another jolt threw him to the floor again.

It was a nightmare. Luke rolled desperately over and over, feeling the heat of blaster fire on his face and expecting at any second to feel his own flesh scorching. He was at a crack in the structure of the ship before he saw it. "Yow...!" he cried as he fell right through the deck.

The boy fell several times his own length into the corridor running below. Just before he would have hit the deck plates the light cruiser jumped under him and swatted him with one of the walls instead. Luke gasped in pain...then crashed into the floor.

Someone screamed not far away. A man's voice was shouting hoarse orders. A whining sound from the engines meant they wouldn't be serving the ship for very much longer.

"Artoo!" Luke cried. He jumped to his feet again and set off at a run. It was obvious, now; whatever had swallowed those other ships was about to take this one as well.

"The hanger deck!" Luke realized. There should be a brace of escape craft there. And Artoo, if he was free to move, would have headed that way as well.

He had only the vaguest plan of the light cruiser in his head, but heading down and towards the sound of the engines should work for him. 

An Imperial in a fancy uniform appeared in front of the boy. "Why," the Imperial cried, "How dare you...oof!"

Luke hit him in the stomach with both fists and kept going. A soldier with the officer dove for a tackle but he misjudged his timing; Luke jumped high and let the man strike floor instead. A hand snatched at his ankle as he passed but didn't get a good hold.

He made a quick turn. Slid under a closing blast door. Then another turn. Ahead, a brace of heavy canisters held by just one weakening chain threatened his passage. Luke covered his head with both arms and kept running.

"There's that boy! Stop him!" Blaster bolts came from behind him. Luke threw himself sideways, turning back to see a whole squad of Stormtroopers clattering up the corridor behind him.

He took three steps back and kicked squarely at the weakened chain. The canisters spilled out into the corridor, most of them rolling in the direction of the Stormtroopers. Luke hopped over one himself and kept going. Behind him were curses and cries and a great clattering of falling armor.

The boy couldn't help a grin. But then a door was in his way. "Hanger Bay 1-b," he read. "Just what I needed." He knelt to study the complicated lock.

"Pwee-too!"

"You said it!" Luke shook his head in chagrin. "It would take us both over twenty minutes to...Artoo! You made it!"

The ship groaned. It had done with shuddering and shaking; either it had fought free, or it had not. Either way it was content to coast. The engines quit in a shocking silence. Then all the lights went out.

"Pweet!" A light flared from the little droid, and focused on an access-way. 

"Artoo, the hanger deck is this way." The droid made an insistent sound. "You think we should go that way instead?" The droid took off rolling. "Hey, wait up!"

In just moments there were at the round hatch of an escape pod. "Trust the expert," Luke said wryly.

Boy and droid crammed into the tiny spherical space. The moment the hatch sealed Luke flipped up the protective cover and fired the thruster charge. The pod ripped itself free of the damaged Imperial craft and slid into the dark.

  
  
  
  
The pod hit hard. Of course, they had been designed to hit hard. Luke found the handle with numb hands and shoved. A puff of foul atmosphere vented and the cool clean air outside came wafting in.

Luke lifted the droid out, first, lowering it as far as he could. Then he turned around and crawled out the hatch himself.

About them was forest. Green forest, massive forest, as far as the eye could see.

"Pweet?"

"You said it, little guy." The boy ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, and looked around at the new world in wonderment. "Artoo, I've a feeling we're not on Tatooine any more."

  
  
  
  
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	2. The Ewok Village

Scribbler's note: with this chapter it may become obvious why I put the story under "humor." Keep an eye out for parallels -- there are more than it might appear!   
  
  
  
  
  


Chapter Two : The Ewok Village   
  
  
  


"Artoo, somehow I don't think we're on Tatooine any more." 

The little droid agreed in a long, low whistle. 

Then young Luke got a look at the sky. Blue it was, and cloudless, but in the heights of the upper atmosphere were strange lambent flickerings, powerful energies stirring and shifting in endless patterns. 

"Now I _know_ we're not on Tattooine! We must be on the other side of that thing, the thing that caused all those ships to vanish!" 

Luke took three steps from the fallen escape pod. "Come on, Artoo. Lets..." 

There was something under the pod. Two somethings. A left and a right something, at that. In fact, they seemed to be... 

"Feet!" The boy knelt on the leaf-strewn forest floor. "Artoo, there's somebody under there!" He glanced around the clearing the pod had made in it's descent. Then he looked around again, slower. Then he took another long look at the feet. "I hope it wasn't anyone nice," he said at last. 

Near the feet was a stubby cylinder of metal. It looked like a weapon, but it had no butt, no stock, no sights. Luke was fumbling at it, figuring out which was the "on" switch, when he and Artoo became no longer alone in the clearing. 

The three foot tall, black-furred teddy bear looked at Luke and Artoo. Looked at the feet, lying obviously dead near the young man. Looked back at Luke, and the weapon in his hands. 

It raised its bow and arrows and shook them so they rattled in its paws. Gave a bloodcurdling "whoop!" that raised the birds from the trees. Then... "Welcome, Jedi Warrior!" the teddy bear shrilled.   
  
  
  


The creature's name was "Wickett." It and its kind were "Ewoks," and the world he was on, Luke gathered, was known as "Oz." 

Not that it was easy to understand the shrill, burring speech of the fierce little, furry little, warrior. 

"What makes you think I'm a Jedi?" the boy asked, yet again. 

"You have killed the evillll Bobba Fett. You frrrreed our village. You're wearing a light-saberrrr at your belt." 

"Look, just because I," Luke ducked under a low-hanging branch, "happen to have landed," he ducked under another, "on this Bubba guy, doesn't mean..." 

"Pweeee..." Artoo commented, obviously amused by the exchange. 

"It really is quite simple," Luke tried to explain. "What happened was this; the ship began to twitch, the engines got a stitch," he ducked under another branch, "me an' Artoo bailed and landed in a ditch." 

Luke took a long breath. Chasing down a narrow, low footpath after a warrior teddy-bear was hard work. "Just then, this Fett, for reasons we don't know yet, was traveling through the forest, or so I bet..." 

"Glorious," trilled the Ewok. "Deadly aim. You are a great Jedi Warriorrrr indeed." 

And at that moment they broke free of the forest into the Ewok village. Immediately Luke was surrounded by hundreds of dancing, trilling, teddy bears. He could hardly take in the complex tree-houses all but filling the lower branches of a grove of massive trees, or the simple wattle-and-daub cottages they seemed to use for crafts halls and animal enclosures and who knows what else. 

There were teddy bears everywhere. Teddy bears tall and short, stout and not so stout, from black fur to honey-colored fur and everything in between. Teddy bears in aprons carrying spoons, teddy bears grimed with coal and carrying black-smith's hammers, teddy bears with crooks and what were either bunny rabbits or very small sheep flocking about them. The noise was indescribable. 

"The evil one is dead!" Wickett shrilled. Then he said it again, louder. 

"The evil one is dead!" the crowd shrieked back. "Sound the drums, wake the sleeping, the evil one is dead!" The pandemonium was becoming general. 

"Wait!" Wicket put up his paw. The crowd fell respectfully silent as a grey-furred Ewok came from his hut. This one was wearing beads and branches and a hood, and carried a staff several times taller than it was. 

It began a stamping, complicated dance, muttering under its breath all the while. It shook bits of bone and gourd rattles and muttered more. Then it stamped and danced some more. At last the whole ritual reached some sort of climax. The creature raised itself to its full height and addressed the crowd in what was to Luke a completely indecipherable warbling chant. 

The crowd cheered wildly. "The sorcerer has answered!" Wicket said. "The evil one is really dead!" 

"Most sincerely dead!" amplified another. 

An elderly Ewok in chieftain-looking regalia addressed Luke. "Mighty Jedi, we welcome you to our village." 

"Ah, thanks, I, um..." Luke said. 

A trio of Ewoks in flour-covered aprons were next. They presented Luke with some hard candies and chanted something in unison. 

Then three more Ewoks showed up in beads and little bits of spangle-ly metal. They seemed a little chubbier, a little rounder than Wicket or the Chieftain. They danced enthusiastically, clanging the bracelets on their arms and ringing the little bells on their ankles. 

Luke rubbed his eyes. Were these female Ewoks? 

A lull seemed to be developing in the celebration. Wickett took that moment to address Luke. "In the morning, I will take you to the Jedi of the North. She is eager to meet the new Jedi Warrior in Oz." 

"The who? The what? And I told you I'm not...!" 

Someone banged a pair of brass cymbals right by his ear. "Now, light the bonfire, begin the feasting, open the wine caskets and start the music. Let the celebration begin!"   
  
  
  


Luke wasn't -- quite -- hung over. The Ewoks had never gotten the idea of non-alcoholic beverage, and most of the liquids he had been served had been fermented in some degree. Still, the sun was awfully bright, and the birds a wee bit shrill. 

"This Jedi...she lives here in the forest?" he asked as Wickett led him along a sun-dappled path. 

"Shhh," the little warrior said. "This is a holy place." 

Luke fell silent, holding back his curiosity. Light splashed golden through the rich greens of the canopy, catching bits of the warm brown earth. The trail wandered, shaded, past mighty trunks and small stones dappled with green moss. A stir of a breeze whispered through the leaves. 

A Jedi, Luke thought. A real Jedi. He knew many said the Jedi were extinct. Hunted down by the Empire, some said. They had been magnificent warriors, the tales said. But, much more, they had been incorruptible, totally dedicated to serve the cause of justice and peace and uphold the rights of the helpless. 

And there were other tales, as well. Luke had read them avidly on bleak Tatooine, but here, in this great green forest with its whispering wind, they seemed far more real... and more than a little scary. The Jedi were rumored to be sorcerers, workers of a magic of the mind. 

The trail had narrowed again. Now it was all but invisible. What the little Ewok's sharp eyes followed, Luke did not know. He did his best to keep the dark-furred warrior in sight. 

Somewhere not far away a tiny brook rippled like speech from a silver tongue. Just before the two travelers three huge trees, ancient monarchs of the forest, reached up together into the sky. 

Into the shadowed space between them the Ewok led the boy. He followed, softly. A simple cairn of stones stood in the center of the group. On it something gleamed, lights winking slowly. 

"A tight-beam communicator!" Luke breathed. The little Ewok, with a combination of practice and awe, turned the device on. Then he turned it to face Luke. 

He gasped. The face that formed in the holo was that of a girl, a lovely girl, with a firm chin, cute nose, strange hairstyle, and determined eyes. 

"Aren't you a little young for a Jedi?" Her voice held a warm humor that invited you to laugh along with her. 

Luke realized he'd been staring. He blushed, turned his head. "Ah, I..." he said. 

"The Ewoks tell me you vanquished the bounty hunter Bobba Fett," the girl said. "Good for you!" 

"Um, ah, miss..." 

"I am the Lady Leia Organa, Crown Princess of the Royal House of Alderann." 

"...I mean, Princess," Luke said. "I'm not the warrior the Ewoks think I am," he said quickly. 

Her eyes fell. "Then there truly is no hope?" she said. "No, I can not accept that," she shook her head. "I did not lose hope when my ship crashed here, or when the escape pod I fired off did not return. I did not even lose hope when that vile Lord Vader captured me." 

The girl raised her head again. Luke could see, now, the dark circles under her eyes, the smudge on her cheek. His heart leapt up in sympathy. "You hid a communicator," he said lamely. 

"Yes. The Ewoks have been building a rebellion. They were almost strong enough, before, to attack the 'Governor' the Imperial placed in their land. Now that Bobba Fett is gone, their rebellion has more than an even chance." 

She was holding something back. Luke said it for her, hating himself even as he did. "Until this Lord Vader sends re-enforcement's." 

"Yes," the girl said bitterly. "The Imperials are strong on this world, young Jedi. They mean to make it theirs." 

"Luke. I'm not a Jedi." 

"Then you are in terrible danger. The Imperials are sure to revenge the killing of one of their operatives." 

"What do I do, Princess? I can't stay here...that will only draw them to the Ewok village." He wished he was a real Jedi then. He wished he was strong enough to fight the Imperials. To stop them from turning this world into another slave-pen, crushing the fierce spirit of his Ewoks, chopping the great green forest down into more damnable Imperial paperwork. He wished he were the kind of great hero who could say "Don't worry, Princess; help is on the way." 

"Luke..." the girl Princess said. "There is only one hope. You must go to the Wizard." 

"The Wizard?" 

"A Jedi Master. You will find him in the Emerald City, which he rules and protects." 

"The Emerald City," Luke repeated. Unconsciously, he straightened a little. Perhaps he wasn't much of a hero, but this certainly sounded like a quest. Perhaps he might yet find some way to save not just himself, but Oz and the Princess as well. 

"Here." The girl did something to her communicator. The tight-beam in the clearing bleeped, and a single yellow line appeared on it. "I've set a direction-finder on the Emerald City. Follow that yellow line, Luke. Follow it...to the Wizard." 

  
  
  
  



	3. The Great Forest

Scribbler's note: this isn't as easy as it looks! Sorry it took so long to figure out a few more chapters...  
  
Sorry, too, if the display is a little strange. Fanfiction.net seems to be having trouble accepting HTML at the moment, and I'm re-submitting this without formatting.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Three : The Great Forest  
  
  
  
"Follow the bright yellow line," Luke said to himself. "Follow the bright yellow line."  
  
"The bright yellow line?" the little Ewok warrior asked, his black eyes twinkling like small shiny beads.  
  
"Follow the bright yellow line," Luke explained, holding up the direction-finder the Princess had given him.  
  
"Ah," the warrior said wisely. "To the Great Jedi who lives in the Emerald City. But first we go this way."  
  
"This way? What's this way...I mean that way?"  
  
"The garrison," Wicket said in a matter-of-fact way.  
  
"Garrison, garrison?"  
  
"The Imperial garrison," the Ewok said patiently.  
  
"Oh, that garrison," Luke said. "For a moment I thought you meant..." It hit him then. "An Imperial garrison?" he yelped.  
  
"The evil Fett is no more. Now, the Ewoks rise!" Wicket held up his bow in one furry paw and shook it. Then he screeched another one of his awful, warbling war-cries.  
  
"Only one thing worries us," Wicket continued calmly, his voice as close to a low, satisfied rumble as the voice of a oversized teddy-bear could get. "The Imperials may have a Warbot."  
  
  
  
  
  
They waited until dusk to march. Which suited Luke fine; it meant the Ewoks couldn't see how bad his knees were wobbling. Artoo was only convinced after long argument not to use the bright lights built into his stubby cylindrical body. He rolled through the tangled forest floor with much turning and backing and a steady stream of muttered imprecations in Droid.  
  
"Keep it quiet, Artoo," Luke hissed.  
  
"Sssss!" Wicket hissed back at him.  
  
"Hssss!" twenty Ewok warriors shushed back at Wicket.  
  
Artoo muttered something that started with a low electronic tone and ended up in a small metallic fart.  
  
Oh, this is turning out to be a fine adventure, Luke thought sourly. He found himself remembering life back on the moisture farm with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Sure, it had been boring most of the time, and hard work most of the times that it wasn't boring. And dry and dusty pretty much all of the time.  
  
But he missed it. He missed his folks. Adventure was all well and good when you were reading it on a tape and curled up under the covers of your own bed, or chatting about it with friends over a long sunset and a tall glass of...well, on Tatooine usually a barely-carbonized soft drink that crossed the best aspects of sarsaparilla and fusel oil.  
  
But real adventure meant long nights and dirty clothes and empty stomachs, and getting hurt and having to watch friends get hurt, and worrying and missing home, and way, way, way too much walking.  
  
"We are there," Wicket hissed loudly in the boy's ear.  
  
"Okay. I mean, great!" A thought struck him. "What's the plan?"  
  
"We attack!" Wicket screeched.  
  
"Oh, sh...!" Luke said.  
  
Half a hundred heavily-armed teddy bears erupted from the forest and leapt into the clearing. Some fired bows...others ran in front of the arrows. Some paused to pose dramatically with weapons upheld...and others kept going and bowled them over.  
  
Somehow they managed to keep from injuring themselves or others. Luke got the feeling Ewoks were durn near indestructible. They charged out of the bush under the moonlight, swarmed over the two sorry-looking troopers on guard, and were inside the cluster of cheap, pre-fab buildings.  
  
The Imperials offered no effective resistance. More than a few blaster bolts cracked into the night but somehow all they brought down was shrubbery -- and the large communications antenna on the top of the main building.   
  
It was more than possible, Luke was to reflect rather later, that the extreme disorganization of the Ewoks had worked in their favor. The Imperials were too used to thinking in terms of established fronts and lines of attack. Hit from so many directions at once they assumed they had been surrounded by a vastly superior force. Most of them gave up right away.  
  
Except for one.  
  
Luke came around a barrel just as a glittering metallic figure strode out of the darkened barracks. "Ieee!" cried the first Ewok that spotted the robot.  
  
"Ieee!" cried the others. "Run away!"  
  
In mere seconds the tide of battle turned. The wave of Ewoks turned to froth then began an unseemly retreat from the shore. Luke could see the attack dissolving before his eyes. "Wait! Wait!" he jumped to his feet. "Uh, oh," he said then.  
  
He was effectively alone in the clearing, empty-handed, and a stone's throw from the glittering metal of an Imperial Warbot.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The Ewoks waited breathlessly to see what their Heroic Jedi would do. The Imperials waited, winded and confused, to see what the crazy teddy-bears were up to now. Luke waited to be killed.  
  
The warbot was taller than he was and sheathed in metallic gold. It was vaguely human in form, with two large eyes in a face whose fixed expression seemed rather bemused. An extremely large rifle was cradled uncomfortably in its arms.  
  
Luke scratched his head. Something about this just didn't look right.  
  
"Hands up, prisoner, by orders of the Imperium!" the warbot rasped mettalically.  
  
Luke stuck his hands up. The warbot fiddled with its weapon.  
  
"Drop your weapons!" the warbot said next.  
  
"I'll have to put my hands down," Luke said. Suddenly he began to grin. The situation was just too strange. Days ago, on the farm in Tattooine, he would have never imagined he'd be facing down a Warbot while leading an attack of primitive warriors on a remote Imperial garrison.  
  
"Okay..." the warbot said uncertainly. "That is, you may." It cocked its head in uncertainty. Cleared its throat mettallically. "Don't try nothin' funny, ya' louse!" it said then. "Now drop that gat before I drill ya!"  
  
"Huh?" Luke's jaw dropped.  
  
The warbot shook his weapon. Almost dropped it. Got a good grip again and waved it vaguely in Luke's direction. "Drop the hardware or you'll be sleeping with the fishes!"  
  
"Waa...?"  
  
A sardonic beep cut across the clearing.  
  
"I most certainly do not!" the warbot said testily. His original cultured accent had returned. "I was merely using the most effective idiom for this situation."  
  
"Um..." Luke interjected. "I hate to bother you, but...you forgot to put the power pack in your weapon."  
  
"Oh, dear," the warbot said. It fumbled again, comically. Then dropped the large weapon in the dirt.  
  
"Ewoks...attack!" Luke howled. "Leave the 'Warbot' to me!" he added.  
  
The Ewoks re-appeared like the tide returning, and broke over the remaining Imperials with a spray of arrows and war-cries and random blaster bolts. Luke was left alone with the robot, and Artoo.  
  
"Twee-twoo-twaaa," Artoo said.  
  
"Well, I never! That Artoo unit of yours is rather fresh."  
  
"That he is," Luke grinned. "You aren't a warbot. What are you?"  
  
"I am C3PO, a protocol and translator droid attached to the royal family of Alderan. The Imperials pressed me into service to help them in any way I could."  
  
"Pweee," Artoo said, expressing his opinion of the effectiveness of the droid's service.  
  
"I am afraid you are quite right, Artoo," the tall golden figure said sadly. "I'm a failure. I couldn't even convince a young boy to surrender."  
  
"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself, Threepio," Luke said. "You really had me going for a moment."  
  
"Do you really think so? Oh, you are just saying that to make me feel better." Threepio sighed. "I know one million three hundred and sixty-five languages with their expressions and regional dialects, the heraldry and lexicology of all six thousand sixty-eight original members of the Old Republic, but when it comes to practical matters I am as useless as a broken-down toaster."  
  
"Then what you need is experience," the boy said. An idea was forming. "Say, we are going to the Emerald City...we've been sent there by your Princess -- Leia Organa of the House of Alderan. So why not come with us?"  
  
A blaster bolt cracked in the distance. Luke cocked an ear. "Of course, it could be dangerous," he said. "The Imperials aren't going to be happy with any of us."  
  
"Oh, I'm not afraid," Threepio assured him. "I am a robot; I can't feel pain. If I get injured I can be repaired easily. The only thing that worries me is a strong electromagnetic field."  
  
"I get it. That sort of thing could scramble your positronic circuits. Well, if you're sure you want to come with us..."  
  
"Why, thank you very much. Say, I am not very good at such things, but shouldn't we be leaving this clearing soon?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Assuming the garrison got a communication out, a scouting force of Imperial Speeder-Bikes should arrive in, oh, fourteen point oh-three-nine minutes. I would not choose to be in the open when they do."  
  
"Threepio," Luke said, "I have a feeling you are going to be handy to have around. Wicket!" He raised his voice, "We gotta move!"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Grmphh," Luke said. He yawned, scratched, then sat up. Then he brushed handfuls of bark and dirt off.  
  
They had walked for hours away from the Imperial Garrison, then found a sheltered-seeming spot to curl up until dawn. Now, dawn it was.  
  
Luke looked around. There was no path visible. Nothing but thick woods in all directions. He sighed. Stood up. Bumped his head against the overhang they had sheltered under. And it rang -- not his head; the overhang.  
  
The boy turned. "Well, I'll be," he said. "I think that's a ship. A crashed ship."  
  
Artoo whistled a low whistle.  
  
The ship had been camouflaged with loose brush, but the cover was dry and dead and pulled away easily. Luke and Threepio cleared away part of the hull and the main hatch. Then Luke cleared away Threepio, who had managed to trip and up-end himself against the sloping hull.  
  
"Thank you, Master Luke. Oh, why must I be such a clutz?"  
  
"Slave-1," Luke was reading off the hull. "Something tells me this was Bobba Fett's ship. Want to bet he hid it here in the brush near where he was operating?"  
  
It took Artoo twenty minutes to get through the complicated lock. The little droid muttered to itself all the while.  
  
"What language!" Threepio remarked. "I say, that Artoo unit must have had a colorful past."  
  
At last the little droid made a satisfied sound.  
  
"And all the internal defenses as well? Are you quite certain you de-activated them, Artoo? I'm sure Master Luke would be unhappy to discover otherwise." Threepio, belatedly, noticed the others had already gone inside. "Oh, wait for me!"  
  
The ship was dark inside. Perhaps it was to Bobba Fett's taste that way. More likely, the internal systems were in no better shape than the dinged-up landing gear, twisted struts, and cracked engine nozzles Luke had noticed outside.  
  
"It might fly," Luke said. "But it would take a good pilot to keep it in the air. It wouldn't do us any good, anyhow. No ship on Oz can escape again, what with the Energy Barrier."  
  
Artoo whistled sharply. Luke looked that way to see a light blinking slowly on some lumpy piece of gear in the cramped cargo space.  
  
"It looks like...it is...a man," Luke said in a hushed voice. "A man frozen in stone."  
  
"If I could beg your pardon, Master Luke?"  
  
"Threepio?" Luke's voice was still hushed.  
  
"This appears to me to be a variation of a commercial carbon-freezing unit. They are used on some long-range expeditions to store perishable goods; mostly food-stuffs."  
  
The man looked out at Luke with sightless, bas-relief eyes, hands straining from the black stone in the agony of being buried alive.  
  
Artoo beeped again. The red light continued to blink. Below it was a small status panel. "I...I don't believe this," Luke studied the panel. "Threepio, do you think...is there a chance he is still alive, in there?"  
  
Artoo beeped again, more definitely. A probe came from his stubby body and advanced at the black basaltic slab containing the frozen man.  
  
"Artoo, what are you..?"  
  
The little droid touched a control. Suddenly light flared about the stone. Steam hissed. Lights went crazy. A low hum came and climbed rapidly to a whine. The black stone began to flow like water, then, with increasing rapidity, blew away into vapor.  
  
Luke coughed in the cloud. It was cold, too; cold enough to drive him away into the furthest corner of the cargo bay. But he could not take his eyes from the changes occurring in the black slab and its pitiful occupant.  
  
A huge gasp of vapor came. Cracked bits of black stone rained down, and a large piece of equipment whined then fell over. Then, suddenly, all lights and activity stopped.  
  
A man stood, crouched, wavering, in the middle of the floor. He took a gasping, whooping breath. Shuddered. Then collapsed bonelessly to the deck-plates of Slave-1. 


	4. Many Meetings

The Great Forest of Oz rustled in somber leafy splendor, light filtering golden through green leaves and oak leaves lying fragrant in heaps of brown against the grassy ground. Inside the battered hulk of Slave-1, in the dark and dusty interior of that little ship, the man that had once been its prisoner was recovering.  
  
"Here." Luke handed him the canteen again. "So how'd you get yourself in such a predicament anyhow?"  
  
"It's a long story, kid." The man, Han Solo, had a boyish charm that came through the veneer of cynicism and the devil-may-care attitude. He wore what looked like the remains of a navy uniform; a white shirt and blue trousers with a stripe.  
  
"We've got time," Luke shrugged. "You aren't ready to travel yet."  
  
"No." Han shuddered. "When I saw that carbon-freezing chamber, I thought I'd never travel on my own power again." He breathed out. "Right. Find yourself a chair and I'll tell you the whole sad story."  
  
Artoo made a strange sound. Threepio turned to him. "What ever would make you think that, Artoo? Does Mr. Solo even look like he is getting ready to sing?"  
  
"The trouble started back when I was a dashing young Ensign in the Corellian Space Navy, and in love with a winkie maiden."  
  
"What's a Winkie?" Luke wanted to know. He wondered if they were cute.  
  
"No, she was as Corellian as I am. I meant she like to wink at other guys. We had a little talk about that. The problem was, her dad was an Admiral. Dad didn't think much of me, and he had me framed for theft then cashiered out of the Navy."  
  
"How terrible!" Threepio said.  
  
"Imagine how I felt," Han said dryly. "So I was left on my own with nothing but my wits and what the Navy had taught me. No-one believed I was innocent, not even my winkie girl, and work was hard to come by. I shipped on a tramp out to a no-where dirt planet I can't even remember the name of, worked dockside, and finally got a proper berth as navigator on a tekel-wood smuggler."  
  
"She never believed you, Han?" Luke asked quietly. "Did you ever stop loving her?"  
  
"I stopped caring, kid. She was the first thing I closed out of my heart. Bit by bit, then, I built a wall around myself. I took work on smugglers, I helped slip cyber-comps from Farbletoff and traded blaster shots with company security, I was one of the ships providing cover when the Ascendant of Neberdine was kidnapped and held for ransom.  
  
"I was going to be as hard as battle-steel, as cold as space, and as forgiving as a blaster bolt in the gut. I made myself into as much a robot as a man can be. No insult intended," he offered to the two droids.  
  
"Oh, no, no, not at all," Threepio said. "Don't concern yourself with us, Master Solo."  
  
"I wasn't going to." Solo took another deep breath. "I was building my own carbon-freezing chamber without even knowing it," he said. "I made myself a notorious smuggler, but I had to seek out the Hutt, too. I offered a deal to Jaba that I couldn't deliver on. As careful and as paranoid as I was, I didn't even see Boba Fett coming."  
  
At that moment he took a guarded look around. "What happened to him, by the way?"  
  
"I sorta accidentally...a landing pod fell on him," Luke told him.  
  
"Good." Han raised the canteen again. His eyes were hooded.  
  
"Han..." Luke said suddenly. "It doesn't have to be that way."  
  
"What's that, kid?" The smuggler looked warily at him.  
  
"What I meant...Han, we are trying to get to the Emerald City. There are Imperials all over this world and they are holding a member of the Royal House of Alderan prisoner. We have to reach the Great Jedi of Oz and ask for help."  
  
"What's that to do with me?"  
  
Luke jumped to his feet. "Look around you, Han! There are people who need you! Now are you going to help or not?"  
  
"Kid, I take care of one person and one person only, and that's me!"  
  
"Fine. Fine then! Threepio, it's time for us to get going. We've got a long journey ahead of us." The boy clattered to his feet, angry at Han, and upset with himself for getting angry with Han.  
  
They got outside, Luke covering his eyes against the brightness of even this shady forest after the dim confines of Slave-1. He pulled the direction finder out, toggled the control, got a soft beep and a yellow line that still pointed, he hoped, towards the Emerald City and the chance to rescue the Princess.  
  
"Come on, Threepio," he said. The golden droid followed unsteadily across the forest floor.  
  
"Hey," a voice said quietly.  
  
The boy turned. The man they had unthawed from the carbonite block was in the hatch of the crash-landed spacecraft. "You think you could use the help of a Heartless Space Pirate? Then I'm yours."  
  
"I thought you were a smuggler, not a pirate? Welcome to the group, Han."  
  
The boy looked down at the device in his hands. "Follow the bright yellow line," he said to himself. "Follow the bright yellow line."  
  
. . . . . .  
  
The forest did not get bright and cheerful. Indeed, it got darker and more mysterious as they walked. Han took to walking on the outside, and he patted the blaster on his hip more than once.  
  
"You expecting to use that, Han?" Luke asked.  
  
"Always good to be prepared," the smuggler replied. "There might be all kinds of wild animals in these woods."  
  
"Wild animals!" Threepio yelped. "Animals that eat....droids?" His metal knees were rattling like castanets.  
  
"I've been around the galaxy and seen some pretty strange things," Han told the droid, cocking an eyebrow in a sardonic look. "But what I meant was animals like were-tigers, hexapumas and bugbears."  
  
"Oh, my," the droid said.  
  
Artoo added a comment.  
  
"Oh, my," Threepio said again.  
  
"Would you two stop with that!" Han said sharply.  
  
"Oh, my. That is, my apologies, Master Solo."  
  
"Just keep it quiet back there, okay? It's like traveling with a comedy team."  
  
At that moment Luke stopped dead. The others almost ran into him. "Kid..." Han solo started to say.  
  
"Wait," Luke hissed. "I sense something."  
  
"You SENSE something? What are you, some kind of Boy Jedi?"  
  
"That's not what I meant, Han, I just..."  
  
And that was when the cowled figure stepped into the path before them.  
  
His Imperial Lord Darth Vader, Sith Lord, Dark Jedi, Master of All He Surveyed (or nearly all) looked at the planetary data scans the An Suc Ran's automatics had picked up before it crashed on Oz, and scowled.  
  
Or at least, he appeared to look, and to scowl. In the great black machine helmet he wore he might have been rolling his eyes and giggling inanely for all anyone knew.  
  
Probably not. He was eight feet tall and black as space and the only person in the galaxy that was more evil than he was the Emperor himself. Evil wasn't a matter of looks; it was a matter of deeds. You didn't have to look far to find evil deeds. A few rooms over a royal Princess sat disconsolate in heavy chains.  
  
On the other hand, anyone who had been the object of Her Highness's sarcasm for the last six months might find themselves not entirely unsympathetic to Lord Vader.  
  
"There is a disturbance in The Force," Vader said in a dark voice, low enough to be heard by submarines. "I have not sensed its like since last I stood in the presence of my old roommate."  
  
. . . . . .  
  
All Luke could see was dark cloak; the stranger's face was hidden in shadow. The stranger moved deliberately into the path before them. One gaunt hand lifted slowly. "This is not the path you're looking for," he said and made an odd little wave.  
  
"What is, this?" Han asked, doing the hand thing back at the stranger.  
  
"You should go about your business," the stranger said. He made the gesture again, a little sharper.  
  
"All right, I've had enough." Han hauled out his blaster and pointed it at the cloaked figure. "Now if you would just..."  
  
What happened next happened very fast. In a blur, the stranger moved. A glowing wand materialized in his hand. Han's blaster spoke with a crack of sound and light. And glowing wand met blaster bolt in a sudden coruscation that knocked everyone back a step. Luke's own lightsabre was in his hand before he thought about it, the steely blue of the blade forming before his eyes as if summoned there.  
  
"Whoa, whoa!" the stranger gasped. He fell back with one hand out, the other clutching at his chest. His lightsabre went off and he felt for a seat on a handy tree root with one hand as the other pushed back the cowl of his cloak.  
  
"Whew!" The stranger said. He was still panting, and his hand had returned to clutching his chest. "I don't think I'd want to try that trick a second time! Now put away that blaster, young fellow, before someone gets hurt...namely me!"  
  
He had a kindly, aged face framed by grey beard and uncombed hair. His voice was now cultured and mellow.  
  
"Who are you?" Luke blurted out.  
  
"Ben Kenobi," the stranger said. "I used to be a Jedi Knight."  
  
"Jedi knight. Riiiight. You know, for an order that is supposed to be extinct there seems to be an awful lot of you fellows on this planet."  
  
"I told you, Han, I'm not a Jedi."  
  
"Never thought you were, kid."  
  
They glared at each other. The stranger coughed respectfully.  
  
"And you!" Han spun back. "Some mystic warrior you are! You're more like a spineless coward!"  
  
"Quite right, quite right," Ben said with an added quaver in his voice. "I'm a coward. How do you think I got to be one of the last of the Jedi Knights? By seeking out danger?"  
  
"Well, that's a damn pity," Han said dripping sarcasm. "Because, you see, this boy and these droids are on a fool's errand to rescue some kind of Princess right out from under the Imperial's noses. A real live Jedi Knight would be a big help."  
  
"Well, sorry I can't help." Ben said. He stood up briskly. "I have to be going," he said. "I'm just a washed-up old man. There's no heroism left in me."  
  
Han rolled his eyes. "Good riddance," he said.  
  
Luke's expression was thoughtful. He seemed to be puzzling over something. "Oh!" he said suddenly as he realized Ben was almost gone. "Hey, wait!" he said. "That trick...that trick with parrying a blaster with your lightsabre. Is there any way you could teach that to me?"  
  
Ben stopped walking. He stood still, then, his head slightly up. An odd, distant look was in his eyes. The wind rustled in the forest. "Young Luke," he said at last. His voice had a strange far-away quality too, yet there was a firmness in it that had not been there before. He frowned slightly as if grasping something that he should have known before.   
  
"Yes," he said quietly. He had not yet turned, but was still looking into the distance. "I will teach you." 


End file.
